Effort just getting underway to select successor to Bruce Benson, who retires July 2019

By Cassa Niedringhaus

Staff Writer

Posted:
09/18/2018 09:31:31 PM MDT

Updated:
09/18/2018 09:32:07 PM MDT

University of Colorado President Bruce Benson, pictured at a legislative breakfast in 2014, will retire in July 2019. (File photo)

As the University of Colorado Board of Regents considers which executive search firm will assist in replacing President Bruce Benson, scholars who study such searches have cautioned them about the potential costs and pitfalls of the process.

The researchers have identified best practices they would like to see in university presidential searches, including detailed contracts, specific work plans and an openness that allows participation greater than membership on the university search committee. At CU, the committee will be composed of university and other community members, and it will work with the firm and the regents during the search process.

Judith Wilde, a professor and chief operating officer of George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government, and her colleague James Finkelstein said they have conducted what they believe is the only research on the use of executive search firms in the hiring of university presidents, and they contacted the regents in early September to provide information about their research.

In one study, Wilde and Finkelstein examined the 27 searches for presidents of four-year universities during the 2015-16 academic year, and found about two-thirds involved a search firm, or "headhunter." In reviewing written agreements, they found variations in the amount of detail firms provided about the work they would do, and only 60 percent of universities in their study used formal contracts.

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Well-developed contracts, flat fees

Wilde reviewed CU's contracts with executive search firms for the two most recent presidential searches at the request of the Daily Camera. The CU contracts, she said, were detailed and thorough — a best practice.

"We would consider a very well developed contract to be a best practice," she said. "It's not typically what we see."

In 2007, CU regents selected Storbeck/Pimentel and Associates, a Pennsylvania-based firm, to assist in the search that ultimately chose Benson. CU paid the firm $189,299, which included a flat $125,000 fee and reimbursement of direct expenses, among other costs, according to the contract. The firm also was one of three that joined a panel about presidential searches at the regents retreat in July in Tabernash.

Before that, in 2005, the regents selected Heidrick and Struggles, a Colorado-based firm, to assist in the presidential search that ultimately chose Hank Brown. They paid the firm $133,682, which included a flat $85,000 fee and reimbursement of direct expenses, among other costs, according to the contract.

Wilde said she and Finkelstein consider a flat fee — rather than a contingency fee, which is based on the first-year salary of the new hire — to be a best practice. Otherwise, she said, the search firm has a potential incentive to bargain for a higher salary for the incoming president. CU spokesman Ken McConnellogue said the fee will be developed during contract negotiation but he thinks a "flat fee is most desirable."

Shared governance

Wilde flagged the transparency of the two most recent CU presidential search processes. In those searches, as well as the two that preceded them, the regents named a sole finalist.

"(Finkelstein and I) believe very much in that governance, not only at universities but throughout, should be transparent and it should also, specifically in a university, be shared governance," Wilde said. "That's the basis on which universities were started. When you have highly secret searches where one candidate is trumpeted at the end — 'Here's your new president!' — and nobody knows anything, that's not transparent and it's not shared governance. We really believe in those tenets for the university."

McConnellogue said the regents have not yet decided how many finalists they will name publicly, but they value transparency and have been contacting shared governance groups on the CU campuses to ask for nominations to the search committee. Regents also are exploring other avenues, such as town halls on the campuses and around the state, for people to provide input on what they are looking for in a potential leader.

"The university community is going to have broad input no matter what," McConnellogue said. "In terms of shared governance, we particularly reach out to our shared governance (groups) and ask them for nominations for people to be on the committee, so I think we're pretty deliberate in honoring shared governance."

The University of Northern Colorado earlier this year hired a new president, Andy Feinstein, after a national search in conjunction with Storbeck/Pimentel and Associates.

The firm helped to recruit candidates and advertise the position, UNC spokesman Nate Haas said in an email. The university received more than 400 responses to the job posting, and the firm made more than 900 calls to develop the pool, he said.

The university search committee and the firm worked together to screen applicants, and the search committee and trustees chose Feinstein as the sole finalist, Haas said. The search committee decided that naming a sole finalist would attract the most qualified candidate pool, he said.

Confidentiality vs. transparency

"Searches like (CU's) are always a balancing act between confidentiality and transparency," McConnellogue said. "We want as much input as we can get from the university community, and we want people to be able to provide their input. At the same time, when you're talking presidential-caliber people, they have some expectations of confidentiality up to a certain point in the process."

Wilde said confidentiality, to a point, is important to the process, but there should be involvement by the broader community before a sole finalist is named.

"I could see that just because you apply doesn't mean your name has to be out there," Wilde said. "I could concede that perhaps until the finalists are announced maybe it's OK to have them secret. By the time you get down to the half-dozen finalists or so, that's the point where the names should come out and people should be aware and should be able to check their own networks to see if this is somebody we want."

Both the university's request for proposal for search firms and also the application process for search committee members emphasized confidentiality as an important part of the search.

The matter of the presidential search, and the search committee, are on the radar of campus and system governance groups.

At the Boulder Faculty Assembly's first meeting of the semester on Sept. 6, faculty leaders discussed how they would provide input in the process knowing that most would not be on the committee and that the regents are ultimately the ones who make the decision.

And Nancy Moore, chairwoman of the system-wide University of Colorado Staff Council, told the regents at their full board meeting on Sept. 14 that it "was noted on several of the campuses" that only one staff member will be on the committee to represent all of the staff in the system.

In the past, in addition to two regents, the search committee has been composed of one dean of a school, college or library; four faculty; one staff member; one student; two alumni; and four community members.

In this process, the regents have selected regents Heidi Ganahl and Irene Griego to be co-chairs of the search committee. The regents, as well as system staff and including President Bruce Benson, interviewed three potential search firms in an executive session on Sept. 13.

Committee nominations are open now at cu.edu/presidential-search. Nominations close Oct. 8. The search firm will likely be chosen before the committee is named Oct. 24, McConnellogue said.

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